Another year, another uninspired list of “fascinating people,” courtesy of Barbara Walters. Babs’ 2011 list seems frightfully behind the times: Aren’t Simon Cowell, Katy Perry, Derek Jeter, and the Kardashians kind of old news? Why interview Donald Trump when you could have picked a real politician who actually plans to run for president in 2012, instead of just teasing about it to hype his past-its-prime reality show? Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet from Modern Family aren’t a bad pick, but do we really need to hear more from tabloid favorites Amanda Knox and Pippa Middleton? Here’s hoping the one name ABC is withholding until Walters’ special airs tomorrow night is more inspiring. Meanwhile, your friends at Flavorpill have our entire list of 2011′s most fascinating people ready right now. Our top 10, and the questions we’d ask them, are after the jump. … Read More
Occupy Wall Street
10 Great Musical Double Bills That Should Play Occupy Wall Street
The Occupy movement is famous for welcoming anyone who wants to join. But you can’t help but wonder if, for campers who’ve endured taunts and snow and pepper spray, some musical guests are more welcome than others. Yes, it’s a thrill to see Philip Glass using the people’s mic at Lincoln Center, but too many of the celebrities who visit OWS seem (at the risk of being uncharitable) to be using its fame for their own good instead of vice-versa. One wonders, for instance, how many impassioned discussions of banking regulations and foreclosure statistics were ever interrupted by the comment, “You know who I’d love to hear right now? Third Eye Blind.”
With that in mind, we offer ten dream concerts for OWS — double bills of music that’s relevant and rousing, from artists (unlike these movement-friendly newcomers) with enough name recognition to draw both fans and media attention to Zuccotti Park, or anywhere else the 99 percent are trying to make themselves heard. … Read More
The Morning's Top 5 Pop Culture Stories
1. Slashfilm got an early look at Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises prologue, and discovered that the finished film will have a whopping 50 minutes of IMAX shot-and-projected footage. Here’s a spoiler-free recap.
2. This could be interesting: Spike Lee has signed on to direct Eddie Murphy in a new HBO biopic… Read More
Listen to Lou Reed on the Occupy Wall Street People’s Mic
All kinds of artists and celebrities have gone public with their support for Occupy Wall Street in the past few months, and yet it still comes as something of a surprise to us that Lou Reed has become a vocal part of the movement — not because it clashes with his politics, but because he’s never exactly been a joiner. We noticed his name on the Occupy Musicians petition that launched recently, and last night he and Laurie Anderson showed up at OWS’s Lincoln Center protest, where Philip Glass also spoke. Using the People’s Mic, Reed expressed his solidarity: “I was born in Brooklyn, and I’ve never been more ashamed than to see the barricades tonight. The police are our army. I want to be friends with them. And I wanna occupy Wall Street. I support it.” Hear the whole speech, courtesy of @Newyorkist, after the jump. … Read More
LEGOs Occupy News Bins in San Francisco
This Black Friday, Doctor Popular, a self-described “game designer, illustrator, tailor, rapper, and super nerd,” created a diorama depicting the recent pepper spray incident at UC Davis in an unused news bin for Employment Guide on Market Street. “My hope was to install a piece to get people thinking about recent police violence while they were trying to do their holiday shopping,” he writes. “If I had more time I would have created many more dioramas based on scenes from New York and Oakland.” He adds, “I didn’t set out to create a Lego diorama, but it turns out that their “City sets” contained almost everything you need to create a protest scene. Seriously though, are the cities in Denmark filled with cops? There’s like a 2 to 1 ratio of police to civilians in these kits.” Is LEGO trying to tell us something? Either way, click through to see photos of Doctor Popular’s project, and let us know what you think in the comments! … Read More
Does Jay-Z Deserve This ‘Scrooge’ Sculpture?
Earlier this month we asked if you thought Jay-Z was exploiting the Occupy Movement with a new t-shirt in his Rocawear line that read “Occupy All Streets.” Since that time, the tee was mysteriously removed from the retailer’s website, only to reappear online a few days later with no… Read More
20 Artworks Inspired by the Occupy Wall Street Movement
There’s no denying that the Occupy movement has been inspiring people across the globe, and in many cases, that inspiration is being expressed artistically. Not that we find this the least bit surprising — art and activism have always gone hand in hand. In New York City, the Smithsonian and the New York Historical Society, aware that they have a phenomenon on their hands, have been gathering artifacts from the protest all along, with an eye towards future exhibitions. Even with the art-world spin-off Occupy Museums, meant to get “people to think about who museums serve, and calling the art world out on its elitism and its abuse of labor,” the artistic community has been very supportive of the movement. Here we have collected twenty artworks, from drawings to posters to sculptures to puppets from artists both well known (Banksy, Shepard Fairey) and anonymous. Some of these, like the propaganda posters and stamped dollars, are meant to further the Occupy movement’s cause directly, while others are just artistic visions or ways to capture the humanity of what’s going on in the world right now. Click through to check out twenty pieces of art about Occupy Wall Street, and let us know what you think in the comments. … Read More
Occupy Wall Street Library Maybe Not So Safe and Sound, After All
Amid all the confusion about what’s going on with Occupy Wall Street now that a judge has upheld the city’s right to keep protesters’ tents and sleeping bags out of Zuccotti Park, we’ve been following the equally perplexing story of the OWS Library. Yesterday, we reported that occupiers saw NYPD officers destroying their… Read More
Here’s Why ‘Dark Knight Rises’ Didn’t Shoot at Occupy Wall Street
Last month, we reported on an interesting rumor floating around that Zuccotti Park would feature as a backdrop in Christopher Nolan’s new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, which apparently just wrapped up production today. Now, thanks to IndieWire’s recent interview with Matthew Modine, who plays a supporting character… Read More
NYPD Seizes 5,554 Books from Occupy Wall Street Library
Perhaps, like us, you woke up to the news that Occupy Wall Street has been violently evicted from Zuccotti Park, where protesters have been camped out for almost exactly two months. There’s a lot out there to process, from the arrest of journalists attempting to do their jobs (and exercise their First Amendment… Read More
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